Carved, Cast, Constructed: British Sculpture 1951 – 1991

Location

Marlborough Fine Art

Carved, Cast, Constructed: British Sculpture 1951 – 1991

25 October 2017 - 25 November 2017

Marlborough Fine Art is pleased to present a survey exhibition tracing the developments of post-war British sculpture from 1951-1991. This exhibition traces the visual arts in Britain as they spawned an increasingly rapid succession of theories and styles.

For more than 30 years after 1945 the visual arts in Britain spawned an increasingly rapid succession of theories and styles. With the revelation of the effects of the Holocaust and the atomic bomb after the war, the morality of the artistic gesture, and the language of humanism in appeared to need reaffirming. Hepworth would follow a classicizing abstraction while Moore would concentrate on family groups.

The international standing of British sculpture was increased by Moore at the first post-war Venice Biennale in 1948, subsequently Hepworth, and with the ‘Geometry of Fear’ group of younger sculptors in 1952, which included Reg Butler, Lynn Chadwick, Kenneth Armitage and Eduardo Paolozzi.

In 1956 Victor Pasmore devised a Bauhaus inspired course of Basic Design for Durham using new materials which had been adopted by Picasso and the Russian constructivists abroad. In Britain this ‘liberation’ would also come through Caro’s lecturing at St Martin’s bringing forth a new generation who used materials such as plastics and fibreglass. No stronger contrast could be found between Caro and John Davies’ reconnection with figuration.

In the work of the various sculptors included in the exhibition and their wide ranging use of materials the human figure could be present in life, or vanish completely, leaving only traces of a scarcely visible activity.